A Strange Thanksgiving: An Open Window
by BreatheEndlessNights
Summary: Thanks giving and the holiday season is always an emotional time that makes people sentimental. Or maybe this time, just mental. A downpour, turkey leftovers, and... well, read and see. Sara x Ian Nottingham


Sara Pezinni walked into her chilled apartment, flicking on lights as she went. Outside rain pattered softly against the windowpanes, the only sound to fill the sudden void that'd popped up after she left the department Thanksgiving party. It was cold, so she turned the heater up too as she went to the fridge to put up the plate of left-overs she'd brought home.

If not for the party, she would have spent this thanks giving just like those of the last few years- alone. Well, alone except for a bottle of scotch. Sure, Danny'd always invited her over, but she'd always declined, knowing that being around his family would only remind her of the one she was missing. Suddenly Sara felt a pang as thoughts of her dead but not gone partner rose up. Dang Holidays, they always made her get freak'n sentimental. Or maybe it was just mental.

Sara hung up her dripping wet coat and went over to the window. Outside curtains of rain were falling, isolating all the little lights. Mental huh? Well if she was mental, at least she wasn't the only in an area where the lights didn't reach sat her personal stalker, Ian Nottingham. His hood was pulled up and his coat was closed to keep out the worst of the weather. Sara wondered if while sitting outside at odd hours he ever got sick. Could a member of the Black Dragons even get sick?

'Whatever, it's not my problem.' She thought as she walked away from the window and sat down on the coach before her T.V. Reindeer, snowmen, and little dancing elves had already taken over all the stations. Was he really going to sit out there while it poured?

She went and peered back out of the window. Sure enough, there he was, a darker shadow among the others of the night. Annoyed, she pushed open the window.

"Don't you have anywhere else to be? Some errand to run for Irons?" She yelled out over the now thunder pounding rainfall.

"My duty is to watch over you, Sara." Great, so he did plan to sit out in the rain all night. The idiot. Sara turned away from the window, then turned back, already feeling like an idiot herself for what she was about to do.

"So you just have to watch over me, right? It doesn't matter where from, right?"

"Correct."

"Well then, why..."... "how about you come in - with it raining and all." He didn't move, didn't seem to respond, and Sara started to debate over wither or not she should yell out into the night again. No, if he'd heard her the first time then he could choose to come, or not to.

That settled, Sara went back over to the T.V.; a whole choir of singing toys were now being featured. Pressing the power button, she turned it off for the night. They were already starting with the Christmas movies and it wasn't even the end of Thanksgiving yet.

Whatever, there was a bottle of scotch under the kitchen counter and it too was singing. At least it didn't try to force peppy little hopeful rhymes into her ears. She stood back up - and whorled around to focus on the dark shape that she'd seen out of the corner of her eye. It was Ian.

He stood with his feet apart and head bowed right beside the window. Rain was coming in from the open window, really defeating the reason for Sara having asked him in.

She marched over, grabbing a towel from the top of her clean laundry as she went.

"Here. Dry off - you're dripping all over the floor." She said as she shoved the towel at him before pulling the window closed. An awkward couple of minutes crawled by as Sara resisted the urge to pick up her laundry and shove it somewhere out of sight; it wasn't like he hadn't already seen it, or one of the other loads she'd done since he started "watching" (stalking) her.

"So you really don't any place better to be? Isn't Irons throwing some big party? I would think that you two would be celebrating together."

"I have never celebrated Thanksgiving with him. He does not wish for me to attend such things."

"Wait, you've never celebrated Thanksgiving?" Sara asked.

"No. Nor have we celebrated any other holiday, for he does not deem it necessary for me to do so." They were both still standing beside the window, and she went into the kitchen for something to do. And to escape the dark eyes that had been lifted to connect with hers as they spoke.

In the kitchen she took the paper plate back out of the fridge and it in the microwave. She'd run out of plastic wrap a couple days ago and hadn't had a chance to go out and get any more yet. Since she couldn't cover it, it'd taste weird if she left it in the fridge as it was... and besides, if he hadn't ever celebrated the holiday before, she bet that he hadn't eaten a Thanksgiving dinner before, ether.

Later that night, or in the really early morning, depending on how you looked at it, Sara turned off the last light as she slid into bed. Outside the rain had finally stopped, and a now empty plate was sitting in the trash over in the other room. Maybe Thanksgiving was about looking at the past and remembering what you'd had, but now, it was the start of something new. She'd opened a window, and now there was no pushing back out what'd come in - even if he had left for the night. He was probably still outside somewhere, but she bet that that somewhere was close by.


End file.
